


Stairwell Serenades

by littlemissdarci



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Guitarist Semi, Insomnia, KuroSemi, Kuroo Tetsurou is a Mess, M/M, Musician Semi, One Shot, Pretty Setter Squad, Rare Pairings, Singing, Volleyball Dorks in Love, moonlight serenades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemissdarci/pseuds/littlemissdarci
Summary: Insomnia sucks.Kuroo Tetsurou is unable to fall asleep unless Semi Eita is the one singing to him.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Semi Eita
Comments: 18
Kudos: 84





	Stairwell Serenades

**Author's Note:**

> Please see the bottom notes for the song credits and covers.

_ _ _

Kuroo’s eyes seize open.

The moon is there to greet him once again, wide and round as always. Casting its long, bright, glowing beams through the bedroom curtains.

Groggy and disoriented, he squeezes his eyelids shut in a last-ditch effort, prays that maybe by chance of some divine intervention he will be able to drift back to sleep tonight. He isn’t a light sleeper by any means. But it seems his body has finally decided to torture him. Must be payback for all the alcohol he put into it his first and second year of university.

Despite his sleep derived theories, at this point it was getting too ridiculous for him to chalk it up as anything more than an acute case of severe insomnia.

It was exam season and his third year playing volleyball. He was finally a starter on the university team. He thinks this must be stress-induced.

Whatever the reason may be, it had wrenched him too suddenly from his sleep, as it had for the last few nights, so that it was pointless to attempt to try and fall back asleep now.

He utters an agonized groan and heaves himself up into a sitting position.

Long seconds pass while he blinks wearily into the darkness of his room, yawns, rubs his tired eyes with the heel of his palms. There's a faint, annoying tingling resonating in the lower half of his body that doesn’t let up the longer he sits there. With a sigh, he throws his blanket aside, swings his legs over the edge of his bed and pads across the room and out the door.

It's eerily quiet when he steps into the bathroom. The silence is so deafening that even the slightest shift in the fabric of his sweatpants creates sound as if it was being projected by a megaphone. He's faintly aware of what time it must be as he stands there relieving himself, something around two in the morning. That was the general time that he was up last night, and the night before, and the ones before that. Why would tonight be any different?

His head feels fuzzy just thinking about how many hours he had left before his alarm rang, how much of that time was soon to be spent wide awake and miserable in bed, unable to fall back asleep.

Bladder emptied and hands washed, he makes his way back to his bedroom, yawning loudly. He begins his slow amble in the direction of his room, dragging his feet and idly scratching the back of his head, when he hears it.

_Singing._

Someone outside is singing.

It's two in the morning and a voice carries down the hall from some indecipherable location, floating faint and ghostlike. He actually has to halt mid-step to come to this realization, too disoriented to comprehend what it was right away, but it's difficult to mistake the sound for anything else.

It's muffled and hollow but indistinct enough to hear the melodious rhythm of it. Kuroo almost thinks it another product of his sleep-deprived delirium, that his brain was inventing these noises to further punish him, but the sound carries the longer he stands there.

The voice is a low and rumbly echo, like a thunderstorm far away, but it’s gentle, soft and warm as well, trembling with cracks ever so slightly.

He has to strain to hear it, but it's joined by the faint lazy twang of guitar strings, soft enough an accompaniment not to overpower the voice.

Out of curiosity, Kuroo crosses his living room, past his sleeping roommate who is currently passed out on the couch, textbooks still on the table in front of him, and he slips out the front door to quietly follow the origin of the sound.

It doesn’t take him long. He quietly pads down the hall, letting his ears guide him. He feels like a sailor, too drawn in by a siren’s song to do anything but chase after it.

His curiosity leads him right to the stairwell. This close he can practically feel the voice rattle off his skin, feels it flood his insides as it echoes and reverberates off the adjoining walls.

_“Track suits and red wine. Movies for two. We'll take off our phones, and we'll turn off our shoes.”_

Kuroo can only imagine how much more intense it must be stand in the same room as this voice. The thought is enough to prickle goosebumps along his arms, even more so when emotion in the singer's tone becomes that much more palpable.

It's like pouring caramel. The voice is slow and rich and warm. His hands clench, his heart thundering loudly in his ears.

“ _We'll play Nintendo. Though I always lose. Cause you'll watch the TV. While I'm watching you.”_

He has to peel his warm cheek from where he was listening against the stairwell door to draw his gaze into the small window of the door.

Sitting hunched over on the steps below sits a person leaning heavily against the wall beside him.

The vantage point offers no face to match the voice, nothing to give evidence that this gentle sound was coming from this person. But he's the only one in there and there's no question that this stairwell was producing the beautiful echoey reverb quality of the music playing from his guitar.

_“But there's nothing. Like doing nothing. With you.”_

Kuroo can only see broad shoulders hidden beneath a thick grey hoodie, the strong outline of his back, messy tufts of ashen blonde hair, and he can see fingers gently dancing along the neck of the guitar in his arms. The boy's hand movements against the strings move easily, almost an afterthought, barely present in the song that his voice clearly carries. He takes care to strum delicately, carefully enough to produce a sound that's haunting in its beauty as it carries against the hollowed catacombs of the stairwell.

The fatigue that ravages his body is starting to settle in. So he shifts until he’s sliding down back against the door and he's sitting on the floor.

_“We're not making out, on a boat in the rain. Or in a house I've painted blue. But there's nothing. Like doing nothing, With you.”_

He's caught up in a combination of awe and his overall fatigue to even conceive moving. All the while, he keeps a heavy, glazed-over to the floor in front of him and he savors each of the delicate sounds echoing from the wall beside him.

_“So shut all the windows. And lock all the doors. We're not looking for no one, don't need nothing more.”_

The barrier muffles the noise just so. It’s enough to leaves him unsatisfied and yearning the tiniest bit more. This is as close as he will allow himself to be without opening the stairwell door and alerting the singer of his presence.

_“You'll bite my lip and, I'll want you more. Until we end up. In a heap on the floor.”_

The boy keeps his volume even and soft, he realizes, to not wake up the entire floor. The longer he sits there, the more he begins to catch the way his tone will lilt, the long notes held a bit more boldly and emphatically, his voice raspy and cracking and wavering with raw emotion in a way that sears Kuroo to his core.

It's the kind of sound that commands attention away from all other senses, that moves him to ease his eyes shut and sit there listening carefully, allowing it to wrap around him and blanket him whole.

_“Who needs stars? We've got a roof.”_

It's not until he feels his head nod snap against the wall beside him that his eyes open wildly, the softest gasp seizing in his chest.

_“But there's nothing. Like doing nothing. With you”_

Carefully, he places a heavy hand on the floor, heaving himself back up to his feet. He falters a bit before taking shaky steps as he shuffles back in the direction of his apartment.

_“No, there's nothing-”_

Awake again, he finds himself suddenly exhausted in a way that was distinct from the aching fatigue he'd been suffering from these past sleepless nights.

_“Like doing nothing-”_

Behind him, growing fainter and fainter the farther away from it he walks, the singing carries on, and he commits the sound to memory, memorizes its warmth and its sweetness and intensity, and holds onto it all until he slides back under his covers and curls up against one of his pillows.

_“-With you.”_

_ _ _

He awakens the next morning from the soundest sleep he'd had in days. He feels refreshed, strangely, his joints and muscles relaxed. He floats through his whole day feeling rejuvenated and light, the faint memory of the night before haunting him like a dream.

The relief floods Kuroo like warm sunlight, and he can feel a grin, involuntary and delirious, stretching across his lips.

_ _ _

A few days later it strikes again. It’s two in the morning and he’s back gazing upon the boy in the stairwell, egging him on eagerly with his eyes, before the humming comes, a low soft sound that melts into gentle melodic humming. Kuroo can't help but sigh, his eyes sliding shut at the intensity of the sound.

It's still sweet, the sweetest thing he'd ever heard in his life, and he's overwhelmed, that much more when words begin to float themselves to his ears. The boy's voice carries louder, quivering and echoing in the same powerful and haunting way he remembered.

He feels his knees go weak and he turns to press his back up against the door once again, sliding down until he's sitting. He leans his head back against the wood, embraces the hollowed acoustics of the singing boy behind the wooden barrier.

Kuroo sits there for what feels like an eternity, his body relaxing into jelly the longer he listens, and it's only when his yawns steadily increase, and his eyes grow too heavy to stay open that he hobbles back to his feet and returns to his room.

He's out like a light the minute his head hits the pillow.

_ _ _

Again, two weeks later, it’s become a routine every night for him.

Except this time, he waits.

This time he perches himself on the steps of the inner stairwell, the flight above. His eyes are closed and his head resting along the cold wall next to him. He doesn't check his phone, but he feels maybe half an hour has passed before he hears the loud click of the door handle. His eyes snap open as the door squeaks on its hinges, as it slides back into place. In the ensuing quiet there are soft footsteps padding along the stairs, a gruff cough.

He leans over where he sits, just enough to remain inconspicuous, just enough to peek between the bars of the stair railings. He watches the boy below take a few steps down from the third floor before situating himself on the same step Kuroo had witnessed him occupy night after night.

With his new spot, Kuroo has a better vantage point of his face like this, better than he had before, but before he can look for too long, the boy tilts his head back a bit, and Kuroo has to withdraw quickly in order to avoid being seen.

He settles back against the wall, waiting, listening. There's only a brief pause before he hears the familiar absentminded strumming of the guitar, hears the gentle hum as the boy murmurs to no one in particular. Melody flows forth as his volume increases, as words start to form, and his voice carries upward to find Kuroo’s ears.

_“Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful?”_

It's as lovely a sound as he hoped it might be, far more intense than the affect behind the door. In here there's even less separating the two of them, and so the sound travels, filling the whole stairwell, bouncing off the walls, coming at Kuroo from every direction.

_“Isn't she precious? Less than one minute old._

_I never thought through love we'd be making one as lovely as she._

_But isn't she lovely made from love?”_

The reverb drums in his ears, soothing and rhythmic, and when the boy holds those long notes, the emotion in his tone is almost too much. Kuroo tightens his fingers where they sit in his lap, squeezes his eyes shut, feels tears blossom at the corners, so entranced and moved by the sound that his body reacts involuntarily.

As he listens, Kuroo feels himself drift in and out of semi-consciousness, calm and utterly relaxed in a way that allows him to toe the line between awake and asleep with unhitched fluidity. His hands slacken in his lap and his head droops onto his shoulders as his body completely gives up the fight to stay awake, startling awake every so often when he feels himself begin to nod off. After a while, he can even hear his own breathing pick up in his ears, labored and deep, and then he's so far gone that he gives up completely.

In what feels like a blink, Kuroo awakens again, not by his own accord but from being suddenly jostled by someone gripping his shoulder and shaking.

His eyes flutter open, too abruptly startled from sleep to focus properly on what was in front of him. His vision is hazy and even as he rubs the sleep from his eyes, he struggles to remember where he was.

His gaze eventually registers what's in front of him, the pair of narrowed brown eyes and furrowed brows, and in his confusion and alarm, Kuroo draws back like a surprised cat, knocking the hand away where it's gripping his shoulder.

"Hey, it’s fine,” he hears from the person before him. It's a voice that commands attention, deep and dark, and it forces Kuroo to look at him.

It only takes Kuroo a second to piece together that the person kneeling a step below him and staring up at him is the singing boy from the stairwell. He had never seen his face until this moment, but he would recognize that voice anywhere.

"Sorry if I scared you," the boy continues, sounding genuinely apologetic.

Kuroo’s mouth parts as he watches those lips move, hears the lovely voice that comes out of it, the soundtrack of his last two weeks of sleep are suddenly so close and directed to him. He takes in an involuntary breath, rubs at his eye with his knuckle again as he draws his gaze away, mutters, "What time is it?"

"Almost four."

Kuroo’s eyes widen. Two hours already? Surely, he would have noticed by now, he couldn't have been sitting here that long unless…unless he actually fell asleep.

"Dammit," he groans, sliding a hand over his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" the boy speaks again after a moment, and Kuroo flinches, having forgotten he was still there, "Weird place to be sleeping."

Kuroo stiffens, hesitates, then slowly pulls his hand away from his face to peek down at the other boy. At some point he'd shifted to sit on the steps. His guitar, he notices in the corner of his eye, is resting at the bottom of the stairwell.

"I…" Kuroo begins. What could he say? How creepy would it be to confess that he was there to listen to him sing?

In an effort to avoid the question, Kuroo throws him an easy grin, crosses his arms, tries to sound demanding when he throws a question of his own right back at him, "How did you know I was here?"

"Well, I heard you snore," the boy says with a crooked smirk, the faintest trace of a chuckle in his tone, "Scared the hell out of me. Thought I was the only one in here."

"I don’t snore." Kuroo retorts, feeling heat rise into his cheeks. It was bad enough he had fallen asleep and was caught. He rubs painfully at the back of his neck, glancing away again and groaning in his humiliation.

"It’s okay," the boy continues, "You have one of those cute little breathy snores some people are lucky to have."

When Kuroo looks back at him again, he finds him smiling gently. "Don't worry."

Now that he'd made sense of his surroundings and situation, Kuroo could finally clearly comprehend the person that was sitting before him. Looking at him, really looking at him up close for the first time, smiling as he was, Kuroo is suddenly struck by just how unreasonably handsome this boy was.

_He’s gorgeous._

He is unbelievably, irresponsibly and unfairly _hot_. He goes down as one of the most attractive people he’s ever seen in his life, and he knows Oikawa and Akaashi. He has a delicate pointed chin and these sharp brows that sit above tantalizing coffee auburn eyes that warm your soul just looking into them.

This was the boy that had been singing him to sleep for the last few weeks. Kuroo is suddenly too acutely aware of himself right now, how he must look, and the heat on his face blooms further, crawling up his neck and to the tips of his ears.

At the silence, the mystery boy continues.

"Honestly, you looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you." He shrugs, "But this isn’t really the most comfortable place to spend the night. Which brings me back to my first question- " He meets Kuroo’s gaze with the same piercing stare, "-to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Kuroo has yet to come up with a good excuse yet. This is a feat all the more difficult when someone as attractive as the boy in front of him is rendering him much less capable of formulating complete thoughts. He opens and closes his mouth twice before narrowing his eyes and saying back, "What? Do you own the stairwell? Just because you're here every night at some god-awful hour of the morning doesn’t mean it’s all yours.”

It takes him witnessing the boy's eyebrows shoot up behind his soft ashen bangs for Kuroo to realize what he just said. He's about to try and take it back and blame it on sleep deprived grumpiness and that cocksure attitude of his, when he catches the boy's face suddenly relax, watches a knowing smirk slide onto his lips, and he knows he's doomed.

"Oh, so you’ve been here before?"

"No. You’re so-"

"-I'm so what?” he blinks back innocently.

Was Kuroo imagining things or was he leaning just the tiniest bit closer?

That teasing little grin he wore was starting to look more and more kissable by the second.

"You’re so…loud," he stammers, trying desperately to save face, "I bet the whole hall can hear you."

"And yet you're the only one sneaking around to listen."

"I wasn't-“ Kuroo insists, but the words don't sound convincing even to him. He avoids eye contact, “Why are you even playing in the stairwell?” he mumbles.

The boy says nothing for a while and then sighs.

"My roommate needs to sleep, so I picked a time and a space where I didn't think I would embarrass myself or disturb anyone. I have afternoon classes so being up this late isn't a big deal."

In the corner of his eyes, Kuroo watches him shrug.

The boy moves, and when Kuroo sneaks a glance at him, he finds him leaning forward, arms balanced on the steps between them, trying to peek up at Kuroo as he stands.

"Does that answer your question?"

Kuroo says nothing, hugs his knees closer to himself.

"So? You gonna tell me why you’re here?" He puts his hands on his hips, keeping his gaze trained on Kuroo, "It’s kind of rude to eavesdrop on a guy's privacy and not explain why."

"I didn't mean to," Kuroo mutters after a drawn out silence, and he can feel the boy perk up at the sound of him speak. "It was an accident. I've been having a hard time sleeping. Nerves or stress or something, I don't know. I found you here one night-“ Kuroo stops himself so he wouldn't expose how long ago that was “-and that was the first time I was able to sleep all week. After a few nights it became clear that this was the only way I was going to be able to sleep so I kept coming back."

"Hm," the boy murmurs thoughtfully after a moment, and there's a smile in his tone, “Do I sing that bad?"

" _No_ , not at all!" Kuroo says sharply, sitting straight in alarm, " _No_. You sound- "

_Beautiful_ , is what he means to say, but he can't. That word doesn’t even begin to capture how the honey laced voice of his bedtime soundtrack sounds. He's suddenly bashful, embarrassed by the open honesty, and his voice lowers to just above a whisper as ears grow warm and he glances away again.

"… _good._ You sound really good.” He rubs at his neck awkwardly, “And you play the guitar really well.”

When the boy says nothing right away, Kuroo looks at him, finds his eyes drawn to the floor, his gaze far away, soft smile still lingering on his lips. Seconds pass before he breathes out a small laugh, then blinks up at Kuroo. "That’s good to hear."

Kuroo snorts, returning a smile in response, "Sorry for being a creep."

The boy shakes his head, "No, it's fine. Glad I could help you, then.” He tilts his head to the side, studies Kuroo in a way that makes him squirm self-consciously under the heavy gaze of those intense eyes. They lapse into more comfortable silence again, and Kuroo is about to say something, when the boy moves.

He makes his way down the steps to retrieve his guitar. He returns with the neck of the instrument clasped in one hand, then settles back down on the same step as Kuroo, right beside him.

"I'll play for you a little bit more, but on one condition." He gently nudges Kuroo with his elbow. "Don't lean against the wall. That's got to be bad for your neck. You can lean on me.”

Kuroo frowns, staring at the spot as the boy raises his eyebrows inquisitively. He looks so calm and unperturbed to suggest things like this, as if the two weren't complete strangers and it was normal for them to be so touchy feely right away.

He almost opens his mouth to protest, but the boy has already began strumming a string of notes, has already began to hum gently under his breath, and Kuroo gives up on denying it.

He slides down to lean against the step he's sitting on, pressing his arm up against the boy beside him. He hesitates before going any further than that, but as the boy begins to croon lyrics in that sweet, gentle voice of his, so much closer than it had ever been before, Kuroo can't help but droop his head onto his arm.

It's comfortable Kuroo has to admit, cushioned by the boy's surprisingly strong shoulder and the soft plushy material of his jacket.

_"Up on melancholy hill there's a plastic tree._

_Are you here with me?_

_Just looking out on the day of another dream.”_

He feels the boy stiffen next to him for a fraction of a second as contact is made, hears his fingers fumble over the guitar strings, hears the inflection of whatever note he'd been in the midst of holding.

_“Well you can't get what you want, but you can get me. So let's set out to sea.”_

The moment passes quickly though, as if it'd never happened, and he presses on, singing softly, his voice hardly above a whisper, as if the song is meant for him alone to hear.

“ _Cause you are my medicine. When you're close to me.”_

Kuroo’s eyes then glaze over where they watch the boy's fingers dance along the guitar strings and rake their way up to his jaw. His gaze is soft, eyes fond as he plays a complicated sounding run. When he’s not singing his tongue swipes across his lips.

“ _When you're close to me.”_

He's lulled deeper, only barely registering sound, as if it's far, far away from him, and the two sit like that, with the boy continuing to play and Kuroo resting on his arm looking up at his dreamy eyes.

"Don't stare," the boy scolds.

"Hmm?"

"Stop staring at me."

He feels the boy fidget against him before he’s broken from the spell.

Kuroo shifts his gaze away and says, "Just keep going."

“You’re bossy.”

Kuroo’s only response is to dig the crown of his head against his shoulder and nudge insistently with a huge grin and the boy huffs out a laugh.

The beautiful singing resumes and Kuroo feels himself slipping again. He's very nearly gone entirely, his vision dark as sleep consumes him, when he's startled awake again by another abrupt interruption in the flow of melody.

" _Wow. Amazing. L_ ook at you. Out like a light.”

At this point, Kuroo can't even bring himself to use words, tired as he is, only nudges his head more vigorously and makes a whiny distressed little noise.

To further placate him, the strumming continues, the boy's fingers plucking along the strings to produce the melody of a classical lullaby, which Kuroo does not fail to notice is a mocking gesture.

But in the back of his mind he’s deeply impressed. He doesn’t play the guitar, can’t play any instrument, actually. But he knows this is something only a person who has spent countless hours practicing can do.

The singing doesn't start this time, just melodic hums with the music, though Kuroo is too close to the edge for it to matter at this point and let’s himself be lulled by the pretty melody coming from that guitar expertly handled under this boy’s hands.

When he song fades away to its end, the boy speaks again, “You need to get to bed.”

"Mmm?”

“I think you’re ready to pass out and I’m not carrying you back.”

The boy mutters something else, the words melting away into that soft whispery voice he uses when he sings.

Kuroo is weak enough now that only seconds of this are necessary before he's lulled to a deep sleep, completely gone, so much that the next time he's shaken back to consciousness. He shoots up where he's sitting, groaning in agony and feeling like he wants to hit something.

"Sorry," the boy is quick to say, staring at what is likely a murderous glare in Kuroo's eye, "It's almost five. The sun will be up soon."

Kuroo knows he’s a grump when he wakes up, but he tempers the feeling and nods groggily. The other boy gets up first, slinging the guitar around so it's upside down and resting on his back.

Kuroo starts as well, but when he glances up, he sees a hand in his face. His eyes follow it back up its arm, trailing it back to the boy's gorgeous face where he offers him a smile both warm and dizzying. Kuroo only lets himself to stare for a second longer before feeling heat on his face as he glances away. He slips his fingers into the other boy's awaiting palm and allows himself to be heaved to his feet.

Once he’s is standing, the boy lets go and Kuroo wants to chase it with his finger tips to hold once more.

"Which floor are you on?"

"Three," he replies, shoving his hand into his jacket pocket. The place where they touched is sending warmth like electricity shooting up his arms, and he's too acutely aware of it.

The boy nods, “Same.”

Then they're moving, the boy pushes the stairwell door open. Their knuckles brush against each other as they make their way down the hall. It's less contact, but somehow strangely more intimate, and Kuroo can't bring himself to say a word the entire way, not until he sees his door and mutters softly, “This one is me.”

He waits, watches as he unlocks his door but hesitates to open it, keeping his hand grasped around the handle without turning it. After a moment, Kuroo turns around, crowding his back against the door and leveling his gaze down to the other boy.

"Thanks for that," he says, forcing himself to make eye contact and not look away in embarrassment again.

He's staring back, well, Kuroo can't place the look, but there's a different intensity about it, the way his eyes roam across his face, the way his lips stretch into a smile, something about it that makes Kuroo feel butterflies at the pit of his stomach. “Anytime.”

Loss for words, awkward, in a way he was not familiar with, he wants to say something bold, to turn the situation around, but then the boy is moving. Kuroo’s deft eyes follow the hand lifting and he swallows hard as it travels to his face.

With just the tip of his index finger, the boy strokes his cheekbone, feather light. "Good night, Sleeping Beauty," the boy says, smiling. He nods once before stepping back and slipping his hands to the front pockets of his jeans and turns to walk down the hall.

Kuroo falls into his apartment with a racing heart and a tingling cheek.

_ _ _

As expected, Kuroo wakes up to his alarm not much later that morning, groggy as ever. His sleep had been interrupted too many times over the course of the night to hope for anything otherwise. He's peeved at first, but then he remembers everything, replays his memories of his encounter from the night before, and he forgets how grouchy he feels almost instantly.

His mind lingers on the handsome boy from the stairwell in a way that's unique from how it had before. Now that they've both been made aware of one another, some part of him is half-convinced he might run into him in the daylight hours, somewhere in the hall, maybe in the elevator, a place beyond the stairwell where they met.

When no chance rendezvous happens in any of those places over the course of his day, he has to remind himself that the boy is probably sleeping, that he'd stayed up just as late as himself and had no reason to be out when he didn't have class until the late afternoon.

_ _ _

He barely survives another day, floating through most of it on the verge of collapsing and knocking out any second. He'd never been so glad to see his bed after returning home from that evening's practice he had to consciously stay alert throughout. 

He's back at his apartment, showered and clean. He situates himself snug beneath the covers, folding an arm behind his head and gazing up at the ceiling. He wonders how long this fatigue will last, if he will have to resort to his new stairwell crush again. Things were different now that they'd made contact, and he doesn't know if it's right for him to go back there.

He sighs and slides his eyes shut, thinks of chestnut eyes and gentle voices. He wants to ask him out. 

He decides to just cross that bridge when he gets to it.

Not more than fifteen minutes pass before he feels vibrations buzzing at his hip. His eyes snap open in surprise before he digs a hand into his pocket and retrieves the phone. A number he does not recognize displays on the screen. He frowns, hesitating before accepting the call and placing it against his ear.

"Hello?" he says in a voice just above a whisper.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty."

The familiar sound sends am excited jolt down his spine and stays there.

"-It’s me," the voice continues, soft and warm and soothing against Kuroo’s ear drums. He pauses briefly, "Uh, the guy from the stairs.”

_No shit_ , Kuroo almost blurts but he’s rolling onto his side, grinning ear to ear and biting on his thumb with schoolgirl excitement as he curls into a ball.

Thankful his face could not be seen right now, Kuroo takes a moment to compose himself, "How did you get my number?”

"My roommate-“ murmurs matter-of-factly through the speaker, “-is one of your teammates.”

He cards through all the possible people, when the boy clarifies, “-Sakusa Kiyoomi.” And Kuroo silently thanks the germaphobe, would hug the guy if it didn’t mean he would bite his head off for it.

There's a pause again, and then, in a gentler tone, "Are you in bed right now?"

He can’t wipe the stupid smile off his face when he thinks about this boy, how he must look asking that. "Oya? This sounds like the beginning to some really cliche phone sex."

The boy laughs loud and Kuroo can hear the reverberations of the sound loud and clear in his ear, "No. If that was my intent, I would definitely start of with something better than _that_."

Kuroo bites down on his thumb, _hard_. All the implications and naughty thoughts that stream into his head at that, _he’s perfect,_ he thinks. But he’s broken from the fantasies when he hears the sudden twang of guitar strings.

He understands almost immediately.

"I figured it'd be easier like this," he continues, "then you don't have to walk all the way back to your place since you're already in bed."

Kuroo is startled by the gesture, is so moved that he can't find the words to respond, and he's overwhelmed enough by it that he almost misses when the boy asks in a manner that sounds distinctly shy, "…is that okay with you?"

"I…" Kuroo begins, having trouble expressing just what this means to him to someone he barely knows. The dumb romantic in him considers this the equivalent of a love confession. It’s by far the most romantic thing to happen to him in these 20 years on this earth. It's thoughtful, it's kind, it's caring in the way someone makes you soup when you're sick. He swallows these words, clears his throat, and then with false bravado, says through a bashful smile, "-you’re going to serenade me?"

When he laughs this time, it's a breathy, humorless thing, "Obviously.”

Kuroo’s breath hitches in his throat in a way he hopes isn't noticeable. He hears his roommate in the kitchen, and in a quiet voice close to his phone's speaker, his lips move just enough to speak the words, "Thanks for thinking of me."

"It's nothing. I hope this helps."

He can hear the phone being set down. Strumming picking up, turns into a melody after that, and then there’s singing. The phone makes things interesting; nothing could compare to a live performance, to the physicality of having the sound surround him, but like this, the light sound of the guitar and the inflections of his voice were so close in his ear, it feels like a private concert.

It’s like a secret being told just to him, like the boy was right next to him again and whispering the words, mouthing them against the shell of his ear.

It's glorious.

He shivers at the sensation, feels his body melt into his bed the longer he lays there listening. His hand slackens its grip ever so slightly where he holds the phone against himself, and he can hear his own breathing pick up as his eyes flutter closed.

"Is this working? Is it alright?” he asks after a song or two and Kuroo sighs back, sounding so blissed out that he laughs a small, nervous laugh into the phone.

Despite enjoying this, immensely, he says, "It's not the same."

"I know. But this is the best I can do. Can't exactly sit by you and play in your room, can I?"

"Yes, you can," Kuroo mumbles in a weary voice, his inhibitions long gone, "When my roommate is out. You can stay for the whole night."

He doesn't respond right away.

"O-Okay," he finally replies, the softness of a smile loud in his tone. His strumming picks up again where his singing does not, but Kuroo is so close to the brink of passing out that he doesn't mind.

Until he realizes, “Hey-“

The boy grunts a noncommittal noise of acknowledgement and stops. 

"I don't know your name."

He hears shifting before there’s a reply, "It’s Semi Eita."

And before he can respond, the boys says, "-I already know yours, Kuroo Tetsurou,” he breathes, saying it like he's tasting it, savoring it for the first time.

He is exhausted, is on the verge of sleep, but he's still conscious enough to feel a warmth spread down the length of his whole body just from hearing his name said like that in the same voice that has been unknowingly serenading him for the past few weeks.

“How’d you know who I was?” he asks.

“I’ve seen you at the games before.”

“Oh,” he mumbles lazily.

“Hey,”

It’s a bit more like a question, like a request, like he's asking for attention.

"Yes?"

"Wanna get dinner tomorrow? I know you guys don’t have practice."

Kuroo’s heart stutters and he shifts in delighted surprise, "I would love that."

"Yeah?” Semi says, the happiness lacing itself all across his voice and through the phone, “Cool. Don’t forget."

"I won’t miss it for the world." Kuroo promises, hand on his chest as he tries to remember to breathe.

The moment settles, and Semi continues where he left off, lingering on the line for a few more minutes until he hears Kuroo’s breathing begin to even out. He sounds far away, likely having dropped the phone somewhere on his bed.

_"Good night_ , Kuroo." Semi whispers to his sleeping audience.

With Kuroo’s light snoring on the other line, he terminates the call.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is completely self-indulgent. 
> 
> It's me enjoying the KuroSemi rare-pairing that I love so much, while fulfilling my personal headcanon of musician Semi singing and playing the guitar. 
> 
>   
> The songs/lyrics in this fic are credited to the following artists in order of which they appear: 
> 
> "Bruno Major- Nothing"- For Sam Kim's cover, click [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m380-v03W8I)
> 
> "Stevie Wonder- Isn't She Lovely"- For Oh Hyuk's cover, click [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEq_HIQF3XY)
> 
> "Gorillaz- Melancholy Hill"- Acoustic Version click [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEPSfXINdT0)
> 
> Rene Kowalczyk's arrangement of Brahms Lullaby click [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANm9lW_ZWHk)  
> 
> 
> *Please click the links if you want to listen! These covers are how I imagine Semi plays/sings in this story.
> 
> ***SPOILER ALERT*** (Not pertaining to the Haikyuu plot line):
> 
> In Chapter 379 we find out Semi grew up to be a musician (and civil servant). I love when my headcanon becomes...canon.
> 
>   
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
